Unless otherwise indicated, the foregoing is not admitted to be prior art to the claims recited herein and should not be construed as such.
Manufacturers of electronic devices, especially portable battery powered devices, usually require information about how much power is being consumed by various electronic components in electronic devices. Knowing the amount of current being delivered to a load can be useful in a wide variety of applications. For example, in low-power electronic devices (e.g., smart phone, computer tablets, and other consumer electronics) the supply current can be monitored to understand the system's impact on battery life for purpose of power optimization of the device and end user applications.
Low dropout (LDO) voltage regulators are common in portable electronic devices. Generally, a current sensor is a circuit that can detect a current (e.g., current through a load) and produce an output signal (e.g., current) that is representative of the detected current.